Juan Madrigal
Learning Strategist, Math & ELA

Juan began tutoring as a high school student due to his passion for learning and his love for mathematics and writing. He spent much of his free time--as a teen and as an adult--teaching bible study, coaching water polo and swimming, and tutoring members of his community. It was this continued pattern of pedagogy and the rewarding nature of the role of an educator that led him to pursue a full-time career in education.

 

Juan was born and raised in Fremont, California. The son of two Cal alumni, he attended the campus he had visited throughout his youth, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. This degree allowed him to marry his interests of argumentative and analytical writing with the complexities of formal logic and mathematics. After graduating, Juan would go on to work as a Marketing Strategist in various e-commerce and tech start-ups in Silicon Valley while tutoring and coaching in his free time. After four years, he returned to school at San Jose State University to earn his single subject teaching credential for English. There, he studied educational psychology, differentiation and intervention strategies, and curriculum development among other useful frameworks for constructing an equitable and effective learning space for all students.

 

In his eight years as a private tutor, Juan learned to teach and embrace different methods of problem solving by working with his students to assess their learning needs. Watching his students' different approaches to integrating differential equations, proving the similarity of triangles, and finding the roots of quadratic equations revealed a deep creative element in mathematics that he would incorporate into his pedagogy.

 

In his two years as a bible study teacher, Juan observed the importance of multimodal instruction, seeing the ways playing games, writing summaries, engaging with direct instruction and performing memorization all contributed differently to students' understanding of complex texts. In his four years as a water polo coach and three years as a swim coach, Juan learned the importance of enforcing positive habits in learners, administering regular assessments to measure improvement, and giving constructive feedback to help learners recognize patterns and improve performance.

 

As a teacher at College Advising Prep, Juan is learning how to moderate meaningful learning experiences for students in a way that helps them foster independence and autonomy in their own learning journeys. He remains committed to helping his students achieve their academic potential and gain the necessary skills in writing and math.

 

In his free time, Juan enjoys physical fitness, and participates in marathons, ultra-marathons and triathlons. Juan also enjoys creative writing and performs regularly at open mic in Los Gatos and Oakland (and virtually since the SIP orders).